


miracles and wonders

by metonymy



Series: The Chosen Ones [3]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Chanukah, Friendship, Gen, Jewish Holidays, Mentors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight scenes of Chanukah at the Xavier School for the Gifted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	miracles and wonders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocky_slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/gifts), [Amy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amy/gifts).



אַחַת

Erik really shouldn't be surprised when Kitty walks into his office and announces that they need to get a menorah. 

"My mom sent me the one I always used to use at home, but it's tiny. It uses birthday candles," she says, sounding almost scornful. "Which I love, but if we're going to do Chanukah for everybody at the school we'll need one big enough that people won't blow it out by accident."

"Very well," he says, tenting his fingers the way Charles so often does. Kitty does not seem impressed by this move at all. She's changed so much since coming to the school, since she learned to control her powers and met others like her. But Erik is still the only other Jew here, student or staff, and even though he still struggles with his own loss of faith he has no trouble supporting Kitty in that battle against indifference. He rather suspects Kitty enjoys that her ally is also the deputy headmaster, but she's so damned cheerful in her insistence that he can't really blame her for dragging him along. It shows initiative.

"So let's go get one that's bigger."

They argue over whether or not to get an electric menorah - safety versus tradition - and in the end they both decide that the candles are worth the risk. Besides, as Kitty points out, with Ororo and Bobby around a fire started by the candles could never really get all that large. It's a fair point.

שְׁתַּיִם

Kitty had her bat mitzvah before her powers manifested. Which is probably for the best, because it was hard enough leaving home and her family and the few friends she did have, and integrating into Xavier's was tough even with everybody here, and trying to prepare for coming to the Torah as a woman would have been impossibly difficult. Especially at a new synagogue. 

It does mean, though, that her Hebrew's a little rusty. She's still got it, she still mostly remembers the words from last year and the year before that and every other year they lit the candles. And there's a handy insert with the prayers and a transliterated version and a translation in the box of candles. 

But she's still more fluid than Erik. Not better, just more familiar. There's a crowd gathered by the time the sun sets and they light the candles. Kitty's pretty sure that has more to do with her promises of games and special food and candy than any actual interest in the traditions. Okay, Ororo looks genuinely interested, and the Professor too, though he'd look thoroughly fascinated by any ceremony he's unfamiliar with. And the fact that Erik's helping her with this obviously counts to him too.

The crowd's still smaller than the congregation at North Shore Congregation Israel and it's all friends, her new family here a thousand miles away from home. 

Kitty's nervous anyway. But she takes a breath and begins the familiar prayers and hears Erik's deeper tones right along with her, the scratch and hiss as the match strikes and flares up, the moment when everyone holds their breath as she lights the shamash. 

שָׁלוֹשׁ

Latkes are a tremendous pain in the ass. Erik had not thought about that in years, but as soon as he and Kitty were in the kitchen it all came back to him. 

"Can't you use your powers?" Kitty had asked, gesturing at the box grater. 

"There's no metal in the potatoes," Erik said, repressing a sneer. Kitty opened a drawer and pulled out a fork, sticking it into one end of the potato and offering it to him like some sort of demented Popsicle. 

Erik isn't so curmudgeonly that he couldn't laugh at that. "Very creative, Kitty." And it was less disgusting than doing it by hand, and he could go quicker - though Kitty was still limited at normal speed with her own grater and potatoes. She made him do the onions as well. (Sometimes he wonders how this stubborn, excitable girl has managed to talk him into so many things. Sometimes Erik thinks he's getting soft.)

Nothing makes the frying of dozens upon dozens of latkes less tedious and messy, though. And Erik was willing to admit he was a control freak when it came to others wandering in and offering to help. Kitty was not allowed to help after her last kitchen disaster; she agreed readily, and he suspected that had as much to do with avoiding the mess as with acknowledging her own shortcomings. Besides, her assistance with stacking the layers of paper towels between the latkes was much needed. 

And when everyone is gathered around the table, devouring the latkes with greasy fingers, arguing over whether they were better with apple sauce or sour cream and Bobby asking if he could eat them with ketchup and Illyana suggesting they have them with eggs for breakfast - well, all that effort does seem like it might have been worth it.

אַרְבַּע

The Professor is the one who suggests the dreidel tournament. Kitty's mom had included one in the package with the menorah, and Kitty had originally planned to just have everyone ransack their piggy banks so they could play with pennies. Pennies were what she'd used when her grandfather had taught her how to play, naming the four letters on the sides of the top and sneaking Kitty extra pennies when her spin landed on _shin._

She misses him a lot.

So maybe it's for the best when the professor suggests they get several dreidels and play for gelt. That's different enough to not remind her too much, to let her forget that her _zayde_ is gone. 

Of course, like anything else at the Xavier School for the Gifted, the tournament doesn't actually last long. They start out with good intentions and separate into smaller groups, and lay out ground rules to agree that powers are forbidden. "No telekinesis. No suspicious gusts of wind, Ororo. And no manipulation of any metallic particles in the paint," the Professor says, giving Erik a look that's meant to be stern but fails hopelessly. 

Erik scoffs. But he finds himself drawn into a private battle with the Professor, both of them oblivious to the drama unfolding on the other side of the room.

The game itself is ordinary enough, the smaller groups getting bored and coming to watch Kitty play doggedly with a few others. It's Jubilee who suggests they play for chores. And that gets everyone to join in, writing down their various responsibilities on slips of paper and tossing them into the pot, arguing about whether chores that happen multiple times a week should go in multiple times. There's a small mountain of slips by the time they start playing.

Illyana gets lucky, landing on _gimel_ three turns in a row, and that's when things get ugly. Bobby accuses her of cheating, Piotr bolts to his feet and flexes all his muscles like he's about to start turning to metal, Ororo doesn't move but there's a sudden gust of wind and the papers go flying and the menorah's flames gutter and nearly go out.

"That's quite enough," the Professor says, his voice cracking like Ororo's lightning bolts as he turns to them. Piotr seems to deflate and Bobby hangs his head. Illyana quietly scoops the slips of paper into her lap and flashes Kitty a smile.

חָמֵשׁ

Erik personally felt that providing latkes and gelt was plenty for the party. A minor holiday, he insisted, one that did not require the great excesses of the gentile holidays in December. Feasts are for Pesach, for breaking the fast of Yom Kippur, not for the minor victory of the Maccabees. Their remembrances are enough.

(And besides, it was enough for his mother. He doesn't tell anyone this, but he knows that Charles picks up the stray thought.)

It's a surprise to him, then, when Logan comes in with boxes and boxes of jelly doughnuts. "It's a thing," Logan says as Jubilee makes high-pitched noises and Kitty deputizes Bobby and Piotr to help her distribute the doughnuts fairly. Or sufganiyot, Erik supposes, dredging the term out of his memory. "Heard it from a man I served with, a ways back."

Knowing Logan, that could be a century ago. Frankly Erik is surprised he remembered the fact after this long. The children seem pleased, though, and Erik will treasure the sight of Hank with powdered sugar dusting the blue fur of his face for a long, long time. 

שֵׁשׁ

As the candles burn low, most of the others have drifted away to do homework or watch television. A few of them linger with tea or cocoa or, in Logan's case, a beer. (Bobby left after he asked if the miracle of the oil was a mutant power and Kitty threw a doughnut at his head. She doesn't regret it, even if she now has to mop the entire first floor as punishment.)

By now, Kitty really shouldn't be surprised when they get into the serious discussions. Besides, it's actually appropriate this time to talk about resisting oppression, being vastly outnumbered, fighting against overwhelming odds to survive and be recognized. 

"I always kind of liked it," she says, slumping low in her chair. "I felt weird being one of, like, two Jewish kids in the whole school. When everybody was talking about their Christmas trees and singing all those same dumb songs I'd tell myself that the Maccabees had to stay strong when they were surrounded by the Greek armies. It was silly, but it made me feel better."

"You do what you must to survive being an outsider," Ororo says, her melodious voice soothing as ever. Kitty very carefully does not mention that becoming a goddess doesn't work for everybody - but then, that's as much a separation, even if it's being worshipped instead of being persecuted. 

"Our people have always fought," Erik adds, the words falling like a weight in clear water. 

"But Chanukah isn't just about that," Kitty says, sitting up a little to look over at him. "I mean, it's not just about the Maccabees hiding and only coming out to fight. It's about lighting the candles and putting the menorah in the window to let everyone know we're still here."

"To let them know that the people have survived and that their traditions will continue," the Professor says. He gives Erik another one of those fond looks, and while Erik doesn't smile back he doesn't roll his eyes or storm out either. 

"This conversation's gettin' too metaphorical for me," Logan says, standing and picking up his beer. "Ororo?"

Ororo rises with a smile full of secrets, reaching over to smooth Kitty's hair away from her face. "Perhaps it is all of these things at once, Kitten," she says. Kitty closes her eyes and nods. She understands fighting - that's what the Danger Room is for, after all - but there has to be more to life, to being Jewish, to being a mutant, than just preparing for the next battle. There has to be room for the miracles too. 

שֶׁבַע

The school's Christmas tree arrives a few days into Chanukah. Not too early in December or the tree would drop all its needles, apparently. Erik finds the whole thing messy and rirritating, but the others seem to enjoy it and he's working on not begrudging others their fun. 

It's an ongoing process.

Logan and Piotr go out for an afternoon and come back with an enormous pine. When quizzed on the subject, Logan refuses to confirm whether they simply went out into the woods with an axe or whether they paid for the tree at one of those wretched Boy Scout sales. Erik suspects the former, since it's a truly massive specimen, fit for the tall ceilings of the Xavier mansion.

After the first night, the menorah was moved to the front window, and Erik comes downstairs to find Kitty looking up at Piotr with her hands in fists and a hint of tears in her eyes. 

"What's going on?" Erik asks, regretting once again the necessity of playing mediator rather than simply lifting Piotr by his belt buckle and tossing him out the window. But glazing is expensive. 

"They want to put the tree in front of the window and move the menorah," Kitty says. "And I could phase through the tree to light the candles, but then it's a fire hazard."

Erik turns his gaze on Piotr, who is both sheepish and annoyed and ends up looking like a sort of perturbed bulldog, face sinking into his thick neck. "I do not want a fire. But it looks nicer, in the window. You can see it from outside." 

It's reasonable enough, but Erik understands Kitty's complaint on a bone-deep level. Then again, they have enough trouble with powers going off that they don't need to further risk burning down the entire mansion. 

Kitty gives him a hopeful look, but Erik has realized the need for tactical retreats over the years. "Kitty, we'll move the menorah to the reception room on the other side of the hall. The window's exactly the same." She opens her mouth to protest, but he's already turning to Piotr. "And you are responsible for the tree, and you're going to owe Kitty a favor for so graciously agreeing to move her menorah to accommodate you."

Piotr is more than happy to agree, and Kitty seems mollified by the idea of the Russian owing her an unspecified favor she can call in at any time. She's a little more quiet than usual when they light the candles together that night, though it might just seem that way in contrast to the cheerful arguing he can hear from the other room of the students decorating the tree. But when they're done she offers him a smile, and he puts a hand on her shoulder for a moment, and everything seems like it might be all right.

Erik is really not suited for this kind of thing, but he thinks he's getting better at it.

שְׁמוֹנֶה

At home, Kitty remembers, Chanukah would always sort of dwindle off by the end of the week. Her grandfather would still light the candles, and later her mom would take over, but the latkes and dreidels were long gone. Eight nights is a lot, after all. And at Xavier's it's much the same. Dani joins them for nights five and six, and Ororo joins them a couple of random nights through the week, but by the seventh night it's just them. 

Still, every afternoon for eight days, Erik comes to find Kitty wherever she is and asks if she's ready to light the candles. His Hebrew gets stronger, his voice no longer lagging but intoning the familiar words like he never forgot how.

She looks at him in the candle light each night, wondering about all the things he's seen and experienced, wondering how many Chanukahs he's ignored or forgotten or skipped entirely, how he's feeling celebrating again in the middle of his new life. She wonders what he sees when he looks at her; a child, a future ally, a member of his tribe in more way than one. She hopes it's something good.

On the last night they light the candles and say the prayers and stand together, and Kitty reaches for his hand. Erik's fingers are long and cool and dry, wrapping around her own small hand without a word. They watch the candles burn in silence for a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks once again to Amy for the beta! <3


End file.
